


Bedtime Stories and Robots

by Epiphanyx7



Series: The Myriad Adventures of Maggie Lokisdottir [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Childhood, Future Fic, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Maggie Lokisdottir, Nightmares, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-08
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 06:06:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epiphanyx7/pseuds/Epiphanyx7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s not sure, but she is pretty certain there is a monster that’s hiding behind her closet door, or under the bed, or beside the dresser. The monster would sit really quiet and still like Uncle Clint, with its big yellow eyes staring at her, waiting and waiting until she falls back asleep before it comes out to eat her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedtime Stories and Robots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sparrowshellcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowshellcat/gifts).
  * Inspired by [And Baby Makes 3?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/377942) by [sparrowshellcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowshellcat/pseuds/sparrowshellcat). 



> This takes place somewhere near the end of the story "And Baby Makes 3?", Maggie is 6 years old.

She’s woken from her sleep by a loud thump. A loud, _scary_ thump.

Not all thumps are scary. Some of them are nice thumps, like when Uncle Thor is really happy and he bumps into the stairwell on his way up the stairs, it makes a soft thump when his shoulder hits the wall and then she can hear him laughing. That’s a nice thump.

And there are thumps like when Momma Steve pushes her daddy against the wall to give him hugs and kisses, which happens lots and lots, and when they see her then Daddy will pick her up and then she gets hugs and kisses too and sometimes she kicks and squirms like she’s trying to get away but really she just likes it when they hold her even tighter.

But that thump was a scary thump, and Maggie is awake now, frightened, fighting her way from the tangle of blankets that has her trapped. She sits up straight in the middle of her bed, scared, and sticks her thumb in her mouth. The room is dark, very dark, and the little iron-man nightlight in the corner makes the shadows look big and dark and all the furniture in her room looks strange and wrong and scary.

She’s not sure, but she is pretty certain there is a monster that’s hiding behind her closet door, or under the bed, or beside the dresser. The monster would sit really quiet and still like Uncle Clint, with its big yellow eyes staring at her, waiting and waiting until she falls back asleep before it comes out to eat her.

Biting down on her thumbnail, Maggie shoots a suspicious glare at the dark corner of the room and thinks about this.

The dark fades away as the lights in the room slowly turn on, until the shadows go away and her room is lit with a soft golden glow. JARVIS never asks before he turns on the lights, he always wakes up when she does and makes the shadows go away.

Sometimes she has scary dreams, dreams where Daddy holds her and cries and says that Momma Steve got hurt, and she remembers that happened one time but Momma Steve got better, but now Maggie isn’t so sure. She has to check, just in case, make sure that both her parents are safe because they don’t know about the monsters in the closets or under the bed, and if she doesn’t protect them, they might get hurt.

Maggie takes her thumb out of her mouth, pulls her blanket around her shoulders like a cape, and wiggles over the the end of the bed, using the step-stool to get down.

She checks under the bed, first, but there is only empty boxes and old toys stored under there for the next time she and Joey want to play superheroes and they need dollies to get captured by the bad guys. The corners of the room hide a big green Hulk plushie, a large giraffe that Uncle Thor won for her at a fair, and a broken teapot she hadn’t told her daddy about yet.

He might fix it, but Maggie hasn’t had time to show him because she had been busy all day.

The door to her bedroom is closed but it opens quietly when she turns the handle, and then it’s only a short run down the hallway to her parent’s bedroom. Their door is closed, but she can see the glow of light underneath that means the light in on.

Their door opens without making a sound. Maggie pushes her head in first, just to make sure that her daddies aren’t kissing. Momma Steve is asleep, though, snoring softly, the lamp by the bedside making his hair look like a halo. Daddy is curled up beside him, his dark hair spread out over the pillow, face relaxed. Steve’s arm is wrapped around his middle, his face pushed up behind Daddy’s neck, and they are both fast asleep.

Maggie tip-toes inside. The room is mostly dark, but JARVIS quickly lights the LEDs under the bedframe so she can check for monsters. There is nothing under the bed at all, not even the old sketchpads that Momma Steve used to draw on. Maggie taps the bed so JARVIS knows to turn off the lights, and then she checks beside the dresser.

The corners of the room are all safe, and under Daddy’s desk is too. Last, she checks the closet, which they left wide open.

Daddy’s clothes are all over the ground and the shelves in their closet, and Daddy’s costumes are hanging up beside the Captain America uniform, and there are no monsters at all.

Sighing with relief, Maggie tip-toes back to the door, carefully pulling it shut behind her.

“Jarvis, can you turn off the light in My Daddies Room?” She whispers.

“Consider it done, Miss Maggie,” JARVIS replies, using the speaker across the hall.

She runs back to her own room, ready to go to bed -- except she hasn’t checked her own closet, and that’s where the monsters like to hide. Closets are best for hiding, like with Hide-and-Seek or if you’re playing _Shh-Hide-Me-From-Auntie-Pepper-Munchkin-I-Don’t-Wanna-Go-To-Work-Today_.

Maggie carefully makes her way to the closet door. It’s half-open, leaving a suspicious triangle of darkness between the door and the wall where the monster is hiding.

Inside her closet are dresses and her princess costumes and her pretend-robot suit for when she wants to play Iron Man in the house. But the monster behind the door is scary, and Maggie stops mid-reach, her hand hovering a scant few inches away from the closet door.

Instead of pulling it towards her, exposing the monster’s hiding place, she turns and runs back to the bed, scrambling up the steps and then realizing she needs to go back for her blanket.

She glares at the door. “Jarvis?” She asks, stepping down and grabbing the corner of her blanket, pulling it up after her so she can settle back in the middle of the bed.

“Yes, Miss Maggie?” JARVIS has a nice voice, and he’s always careful to speak quietly and not scare her.

“Jarvis, are there monsters behind my closet door?” She asks, trembling. She wraps the blanket around her as tight as she can, as if it’s armor.

“I have maintained a strict surveillance of your sleeping chamber as you requested, Miss Maggie, there are no hostile presences registered. Regular heat and magic-sensory data is taken every hour, and also registers no presence in your rooms other than that of yourself and, of course, my own. To the best of my knowledge, there are no monsters present anywhere in the mansion.”

Maggie huffs a small sigh of relief, dragging the cocoon of blankets to the pile of pillows where she had been sleeping. “Mmkay, Jarvis.” She mumbles into a pillow. “You remember what to do if you find a monster, right?”

“Should I detect any threat in your presence, my instructions are to alert your fathers and your uncle Thor, so that they can eliminate the problem immediately.” JARVIS replies.

“Good,” Maggie mumbles. “Thank you.”

“You are very welcome, Miss Maggie.”

“Jarvis?”

“How may I be of service?”

Rolling over, she stares up at the ceiling. “Please don’t leave, Jarvis.” Maggie whispers. “I don’t wanna be all alone.”

“I will remain with you until you fall asleep, Miss Maggie,” JARVIS says. “Is that sufficient?”

Maggie nods. “Will you tell me a story?”

There’s a short pause, a whirr of mechanical components as JARVIS processes the request. “Certainly. Would you prefer to choose one for me to recite?”

“You pick.” Maggie’s eyes are drifting shut.

“Very well.” JARVIS pauses, then the cadence of his voice shifts subtly. “ _Once there existed a robot, whose assigned designation was StarkTech Assist-Android C-33X8T2, and who was packaged up as all robots were, surrounded by styrofoam peanuts in a small box, and sent out to the stores. The robot did not know this, because it was in a state of hibernation, one that would prevent the robot from experiencing sensory problems while in transit. The robot’s packaging was opened on December twenty-fifth, colloquially known in some households as Christmas Day. The robot’s owner was a child of five, whose parents shortened the assigned designation to STAAC-3, and the child called zir STACY._ ”

The robot appears on her ceiling, a quickly-sketched boxy shape made of thin blue lines, big eyes, and an antennae on top of it’s head. Maggie lets herself drift, listening to Jarvis tell her the story as the holographic robot above acts it out.

The lights in the room dim, slowly, still on but not enough to bother her with her eyes half-lidded.

“ _\-- There was nowhere for STACY to hide from the battle-droid, so zie stopped zir treads and reversed into the open area where zie could face the other bot,_ ” Jarvis continued, his voice familiar and soothing.

There weren’t monsters, Maggie told herself. No monster could hide from Jarvis, not even the smartest sneakiest monster ever. So it had to be safe to go to sleep -- nothing would be able to hurt her, or her parents, not as long as Jarvis was looking out for them.

“ _The battle-droid fell into the pile of rubble, processors still whirring as its external system configurations finally failed to compensate for gravitational pull. Zir bulk was massive as it crashed to the ground, and a giant wave of dust and grit radiated out from the impact, leaving STACY filthy but none the worse for wear. Zie revved zir motor, quickly moving away from the battle, as zie now knew that it was up to zir to fulfill the battle-droid’s directive and save the planet._ ”

When Maggie finally falls asleep, JARVIS pauses his narration. The lights in her room dim further, and when he has established that she will not re-awaken, JARVIS turns them off completely. The night-light in the room is sufficient illumination to see her by, and he monitors her heart rate and breathing so that he will be notified immediately if she should wake again.

He stores the robot story in his data-backup for future use, making a small note of where he left off so that he can begin there if she requests it.

Loki and Steve are still asleep, although Loki had turned around when the light in their bedroom turned off.

Downstairs, Mr. Stark is in his workshop, continuing his work on the _Dummy3.7_ robot, the door wide open. JARVIS closes and locks the door so that the sounds of his tinkering will not startle any of the house’s other inhabitants.

Satisfied that there is nothing else he can do to be of service until someone calls on him, JARVIS settles himself into sleep mode.

**Author's Note:**

> Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, aka JARVIS, is one of my favourite characters in the Iron Man universe.
> 
> This was inspired by the [Avengers Having Babies]() series written by [Sparrowshellcat](), Maggie is an original character and daughter of Loki and ~~Nick Fury~~ Steve Rogers, who legally adopted her.


End file.
